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Monday, July 20, 2015

World Premier of Wasteland Warriors Bust

I said I would be posting this last Thursday, and indeed I am!

Here is the official live kick off from a collaboration between 2 new players in the miniature making scene :) Coming from the minds of Arlen Pelletier Sculptures and Mr Lee's Minis, we bring you the first bust in our range to be called Wasteland Warriors! And for this article, I want to take you through how we built up this warrior, and where we are today!

I also want to make it clear at the beginning here that pre-orders for the piece ARE NOW OPEN! Huzzah! The final piece will be sitting roughly 50mm all, and will come with some limited extras for the first 100 copies ( a limited start print to see how it is received from everyone here! ).

You can email me at MrLeesMinis (at) gmail.com for more details and to be put on the pre-order list! Expectations are to be able to have the casts in hand at the beginning of August, and to begin to ship everything out soon thereafter ( mid August-ish ).

Now how did we get to this point and create this model above?

As stated on Friday, it all began with a face. A face that Arlen came up with while watching shows with his daughter one evening following a conversation we had about his clay sculptures.

From here, he began to flesh out an upper body for it.

Too much flesh though at this point, and it was difficult for us to see some of the finer details that we get from the grey renders.

Much better. It was also at this point that we discussed about trying to give it a bit of momentum. Which is difficult in a bust, but we went with a shift of his gaze to his left. This would go a bit further in time to really drive the expression further ( or at least the body language to match his expression ).

A major shift here. Now we have an idea that maybe he is checking something over his shoulder, or is about to lob something over at someone or something. Who knows.. but the body language is beginning to tell more of a story to us.. and is much more dynamic than just a bust staring forward to us.

We talked about at this point to go with a Mad Max styled theme on the piece. Since he looked like he is a bit of a bad ass.. and has take a few hits ( puffy face ) and can survive.

So we discussed about a leather jacket ( classic post apocalypse clothing right? ). However the first version came back as the James Dean of Wastelanders mixed with a sense of Calvin Klein. Not really the direction we wanted to head, and also the difficulty of painting the piece with a popper color would be more than one might like. As well as the casting.

This is where Arlen and I worked well together. Taking his skills of sculpting ( quickly I might add! ) and then taking pointers on where I could see issues from a painting point of view. Our hope is that the final version will be an interesting piece for many, but also something that is easy enough to pick up for a weekend to paint!

So with a quick click of a stylus for Arlen, he flattened down the collar, and began to block in a shoulder pad. We searched a lot on the web to get ideas on how we would want this to work out, and for the shoulder pad we really wanted to add some extra details. So for this guy, we decided that maybe he has a shotgun, and would be needing a quick place to pull the shells when reloading. What is easier than the shoulder pad ( ok.. maybe not the safest if hit from another gun, but still convenient! ).

We also attempted to put in a chest belt strap here, but were not fully satisfied with the result.

As you can see.. not all the pieces were meshing nicely for us. And it was from this image that we decided to rearrange the belt location and angle. And to look at different buckle designs to work with. As this was a bit odd looking at this angle ( though would look over from others ).

Having a look at belts and jackets on the web raised more than a few eyebrows for us both from family and friends. As it almost turned into an obsession for one of us ( won't say who but he runs a blog you might be reading from ).. and thanks to Pinterest we have many a jacket and belt style up for reference when required. And we pulled from those to begin to correct some of the pieces here on the model.

Including the chest pocket, which at this point was more aligned to the floor than to his shoulders, and we began to work on the smaller details to tweak and move around.

With a few tweaks of the model, the finer details were beginning to come alive on the piece. The belt was looking more filled in, the jacket details was turning out well, and we began to detail out the back of it as well.

Again looking at a lot of the jackets available, we wanted something more than just empty space on the back. So a diamond pattern was worked into the design. Similar to maybe a motorcycle jacket.

You can also see that our warrior is a bit older.. so a bit of a veteran from the fact that he is not as full with his hair line as many might be ;) But I see this as an option for tattoos to be added :)

At this point it was all about the smaller bits on the model. Adding some stitching on the jacket lining, and shoulder pad. Working on the depth of the shirt further. Fixing up the design of the diamonds. Really starting to tighten up all the pieces on it.

It was also at this point that I was beginning to reach out to printers and casters across UK and Europe to understand what the process would be, and the costs associated to making this a real thing. I also reached out to those already doing the casting or process such as people like Brokentoad, Infamy and Guild Ball. All of whom I have had the pleasure to meet up with over the past years in one form or another, and were very helpful to provide us with advice and ideas on what to avoid to minimize the risks and issues with releasing a model ( be it traditionally sculpted or 3D printed ).

Overall, we did select a supplier, and have been in constant communication with them to get this moving. And correcting any issues or questions from their side before finally going to print last week!

So the final piece is as shown above and below.

And we really couldn't be any happier with the piece as it has been quite the ride for us to get through and learn from. We already have many ideas for future pieces, and expect some WIP shots on them in the coming weeks as they develop further. Oh and expect to see a lot more of my most wicked drawings that we used to kick off some of the pieces coming in the future.

We have also received photos of the first print of the render... I have to say that I was really quite excited to see this digital copy come to life, and to see all the details showing up!

And to see that the sizes that we put for it are also spot on..

Looking at the printed copies, it is great to see all the small details showing up, and makes it clear that we can go even further in the future!

Hopefully you are all liking these as much as we are, and again this guy is up for PRE-ORDER NOW! If you are interested in obtaining one, please email me at MrLeesMinis (at) gmail.com for more details!

Looking forward to having it in my hands, and getting it painted up.. and hoping that more people like it as well, and are looking forward to having it also!

Thanks Peter.. much appreciated for the kind words. That was the hope with this piece that it would have a bit of everything that can be painted up and worked on. Making it both interesting but also a nice easy piece to paint up ;)